Some three months after the first revelation with which we dealt in the first lecture, a new revelation is now given to the prophet. This time the Lord uses a vision rather than simply words. Zechariah sees myrtle trees in the bottom of the valley. Cyrus, the emperor, had allowed the Jews to return from their exile in Babylon. They came to Jerusalem and set up the altar of the Lord and begun building the temple. But they became discouraged, and a further twenty years passed with no progress. Then the word of the Lord came to Haggai, and he began prophesying on the first day of the sixth month of the second year of the emperor Darius, i.e., two months before the first revelation to Zechariah.